Bob's Blog

 It’s Wednesday morning, the 7th of  November 2018, the day after the 2018 elections; and the sun is shining and the skies are blue.  The winners of yesterday’s contests are likely still celebrating, and the losers are likely asking ‘what’s next’?  Reporters are trying to interpret the results, journalists are attempting to ‘read the teabags’, and FOX continues to do what they always do — stoke the fires of outrage with half-truths and conspiracy theories.  Thus far, President Trump has been silent, but the words of the President matter little anymore.

For many people like me, today is a blue day.  I’m certainly grateful for the gains made by opponents of the Trump of Administration in the House of Representatives, but I’m not the least bit interested in gloating.  The ‘blue wave’ was more like an ‘indigo ripple’, and I don’t expect much of the divisive animosity or acrimonious incivility to disappear anytime soon.  Never the less, the first steps have been taken, and I’m grateful that our system of checks and balances is beginning to be restored.

But today is blue for another reason — and my heart remains extremely heavy.  It’s a blue Wednesday morning because the reality of this country’s polarized electorate is not going away.  If anything, it appears to be deepening, with the rifts causing a divide that will likely never be repaired.   Some may have seen this two years ago, with the election of Donald Trump; but I refused to acknowledge it back then.  I thought it was simply a phase; a small step backwards after having taken three steps forward.  I thought that if people just saw the ineptness of the current President – his hostile and rude way of doing ‘business’, and his selfish and unGodly way of leading out country – that everyone would get on board and that change would come.

But the results of  yesterday’s elections reveal that is simply not going to happen – at least not anytime soon.  Voices like mine appear too partisan, party politics remain too strong, the Christian base of the GOP remains too misled, and too many Trumpers remain too uninformed.  And while some of that may be hard to hear, truth cannot be denied.

So I’m blue today.  I realized this morning that perhaps for the very first time I’m getting a tiny taste of what my Black sisters and brothers have been feeling for years: anger over White peoples’ racism, rage over good peoples’ silence in the face of injustice, disbelief over a nation’s flawed reasoning, and confusion over a way of being Christian that is anything but.  I feel as though I’m standing on a cliff of hopelessness, ready to either fall . . . or jump!

As I look out my office window, the ‘big picture’ offers me a view that includes a bright blue sky.  But this morning, for my own sanity, I’m going to narrow my vision, and just focus on the beauty of the fall leaves that adorn the tree in the foreground.  On days like this, we need to focus on the little things: the tiny gains, the laughter amidst the tears, the Light in the darkness, the small joys that come in the morning.  Those are the only remedies for hopelessness, and the only things that can keep us going.

So wherever you are today: take heart, be at peace, and stay strong.  By all means keep resisting, for silence truly is consent.  But do not allow the blueness of the day to overwhelm you.  Do not allow it to either make haughty your soul or make damp your spirit.  There is still work to be done . . . hard, prophetic, reconciling, and transforming work.  Such is the work of ‘blue’ people.  It’s the work to which we have been called, and the work to which we have given our lives.  And we cannot afford to lose focus.

This Wednesday morning, the 7th of November 2018, the day after the elections, let’s feel whatever it is we need to feel, and then let’s take a deep breath and keep going.